Steven's Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Our music video strongly challenged the form and conventions of real media products due to the fact it was abstract, subtly dealt with many themes that are otherwise less touched upon in the music industry and also because it has a non linear narrative. We chose "White Light" by the Gorillaz. They are a fusion band as they are compiled of different artists. However for us to effectively challenge the forms and conventions that govern the music industry we had to take a few on board. This is shown through the traffic scene. Most music videos either have a conventional fast moving traffic scene or at least a close up on a car. Whilst we incorporated this into our video we also tried to implement at least some type of unique spin onto it. We achieved this by cutting up the video and rearranging it into a random order that matches the beats of the song.

Original Location

Our original plan had been to film at an abandoned hospital and deal predominantly with mental health issues in a way similar to that of "Jacobs Ladder", one of our key inspirations. After having gone for an initial shoot and finding the hospital block freshly boarded we needed to seriously rethink our idea. However trying not to have wasted our day we tried to shoot on the outer layers of the hospital coming back with some mediocre footage and minds set upon changing our idea.

Pharcyde (Inspiration)

Having drastically changed our idea, inspiration came in the form of director Spike Jonze's work. Having watched Being John Malkovich and watched his idea for "Drop" by Pharcyde we quickly formulated an idea bordering upon what we had used before. The video had been done entirely backwards which in turn inspired us to focus upon reversing time in our video. As we had originally planned to use a gas mask for a creepy costume effect we felt that it would be a waste to not use it. However we thought a suit would be an acceptable contrast to what was covering the face and would also misguide the audience into having assumption about his character. However another key influence in using the gas mask was the song itself; White Light. Because white light is something that is associated with the explosion of a nuclear bomb we felt that by having an angry and destructive character he could represent the damage of a bomb and thus fits in with the song name.

2. How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

The ancillary texts whilst having had after effects and being severely photoshopped are all made up of images actually included in our music video. They effectively work alongside the video which itself is obscure and very often quite a dark video because they are also bizarre and dark images. The strongest theme that resonates quite strongly through both is that of the gas mask. The gas mask is both attention grabbing and creates a dark atmosphere. Because it is so unusual to see a gas mask in today's society it ensnares the audiences curiosity from just a glance. One main criticism however is the style of writing used for both the digipak and the magazine advert, because there was a lack of communication between the group instead of coming up with one definite design for the writing we have two separate design. We could have resolved this simply by asking each other what we feel would be more effective. However whilst I feel it takes away from the authenticity of our artist, both ancillary texts are strong in design and realism.

The Artists Logo

The two texts are very different in design the digipak which I made uses a contrast between light and dark and I have conciously made all of the outer layers show the gas mask whilst all three inner covers light and portraying the artist. This is because there is a heavy contrast in our video between the artist and the man in the mask. I also felt strong and vibrant colours needed to be used in order to attract potential buyers to noticing the cover and ultimately into purchasing our product.

After having designed our digipak cover I still felt something was missing and thus settled upon the idea that we should have a poster. I added wings to toms back and a red tone to the picture to give him a devilish effect. The explosive looking background was also designed in order to create an otherworldly effect adding further menace to the character's persona. Not only does the poster give something else to the audience but it also encourages them to buy the digipak instead of the regular CD because you get more for your money.

3. What have you learnt from your audience feedback?

Audience feedback was an essential throughout the creation of our video. We began just by asking our classmates what their opinion was of our footage. Often they said it was creepy or good and this encouraged us to continue working down the route we were going. Having received feedback from our peers we felt that a questionnaire may help us further. Although we wanted a more widespread opinion we didn't divide the questionnaires equally between age group or sexes and therefore cannot give an equal viewpoint from both genders.

Some of the most important questions were uncovering what people liked in their music videos and why. We found that often people were quite divided, coming close to 50-50 for yes/no questions. For example when asked if people prefer a narrative the majority ticked yes however many people ticked no. What we learnt from this is that the content is what is important rather than the concept. Because we handed our questionnaires out in college we only manged to get the majority of 19-21 year old's this once again has affected what our overall result from the questionnaires was. Some of the most vital questions however were about location and whether they are unique videos or not. The general response was generally in our favor once again allowing us to continue with our general idea and only having to make smaller changes. The internet however has been instrumental in getting audience feedback, allowing me to connect with friends worldwide and to get their opinion on our video.

4. How did you use new media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

As the director I engaged with all parts of the construction of our video. I acted as cameraman for a short time and thus had to use the camera and tripod. However having done this before it was a relatively simple take. For our second shoot I took control of using the lighting in the drama studio which was controlled via a circuit board. This allowed us to change the lighting and colours to our advantage, often we used yellow lights instead of white. Whilst doing this I also learnt to effectively fade and cross-fade the lights in order to enhance our audiences viewing experience. Also during shoot two I had to use the smoke machine and ensure that there was the right amount of smoke. The smoke machine was one of the key parts in other parts of our coursework due to the fact the smoky image with the gas mask is our key image for marketing our artist.

(Me with the smoke machine)
(The lighting board i used)

We predominantly used the internet for research, generally using social networking and messenger to quiz friends and family on their likes and dislikes in order to ascertain what we should and shouldn't do. Search engines were instrumental in finding similar artists and also learning about our selected artist: "Gorillaz"

Post production is where we really learnt new skills. Whilst Tom managed to do basically all the editing, my original role had been editor and I started us up doing the first 20 or so seconds. Because of an overhaul of the editing suite's equipment we were lucky to learn how to use the mac's and final cut pro. In comparison to the computers we used last year which had less effects and were generally slower to use. Also I used Photoshop CS4 in order to create ancillary texts. This helped significantly as it allows for high quality editing of any image.

In conclusion I feel our overall production and ancillary texts work extremely well together. As with anything created there are many flaws and I feel we could have worked better together, however we have managed to create an effective video and ancillary texts and I am pleased with the final result